I've seen a lot of things blinged with Swarovski crystals, from fridges to record playing VW camper vans (really). But c’mon, Swavovski encrusted Band Aids?
Right up there with Bling H2O, this has to be among the most useless twists on lifestyle accessories – at least for today. What next? Swarovski-sheathed condoms for sadists?
I could give you the official blurb but I can’t be arsed. They’ll cost you £10 for three though and if you need four sparkly crystals to highlight the results of your latest DIY blunder, point your bleeding stump here.-Martin Lynch
Is the safety of your portable gadgets worth £50? That’s what Widget UK wants to know with the launch of Carsafe (from Autosafe). Essentially, it’s a safe for your car to prevent undesirables from nicking your treasured iPod, phone, PDA, GPS Sat-Nav and any other gadgets you are dumb enough to leave lying around inside.
Let’s face it, opportunistic car crime is rampant. Widget even has some scary stats: 1.43 million vehicles broken into last year – that’s one every 22 seconds. Carsafe is tethered by a cable inside the car – no drills, thank goodness – is lightweight, has a double-locking, anti-drill lock and foam-lined interior to protect your precious devices. The company says it is also Thatcham-accredited against a 5-minute attack test, which means some expert has had fun giving it a good thrashing with the tools of the trade.
My own optimistic approach to in-car security amounts to stuffing crap under the driver’s seat – they’ll never look there. If that’s not enough for you, go here.-Martin Lynch
Like the Lucas-approved Darth Vader USB Drives from Mimoco, this Chewbacca USB thumbdrive is limited to a 2500 run, and is available in 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB sizes. No bowcaster?! Awwww... –Brian Lam
Four minutes long and loaded on YouTube, this Dell "ad" features Michael Dell, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Intel's Paul Otellini, among others. Why is it so bad? Because it's confusing who this ad is actually for. It's definitely not for consumers, and with all the talk/singing of partners and relationships, we think it's for other businesses. But...with a viral video that looks like it was made by Jib Jab? – Jason Chen
Regular skylights merely let light in. This Suntracker's 3 aluminum mirrors track the sun using a tiny solar powered motor. Pretty cool way to get 1000-watts worth of lighting in your house for free. Don't worry, the 95% reflective mirrors hit a diffuser first, so you won't feel like an ant under a magnifying glass on hot days. –Brian Lam
Curious as to which airline gives you WiFi access up in the air? Check out this list, meticulously compiled by people who really, really don't want to miss any emails.
Apparently there are two types of WiFi service, which is then customized for each provider. The first is Connexion by Boeing, and the second is OnAir by Airbus. There's also a third type, cellular air-to-ground, which is only useful in continental US flights and isn't really adopted seriously yet.
You can bet we're booking one of these airlines when we go on holiday. Liveblogging from the plane? Oh yes.
This may be painfully obvious once you think about it, but for those who haven't, here's a way to get around the Xbox 360 country lock for downloadable content. Microsoft's chosen to disable certain game demos and game videos for people of certain regions, but we want all our media to be free, don't we?
Go online to xbox.com and register a new gamertag with an email address not associated with any previous account. Then make sure you set your country to either Japan or America—perhaps making one tag for each. Then when that's done, go on your Xbox 360 and choose "recover gamertag" to grab the info from this tag onto your 360. Now you can see all the Japanese games you've been missing out on. – Jason Chen
This looks straight out of some exotic place—we're guessing Japan—where a straight nose is important enough to make a gadget for. We're not convinced that Cleopatra's was the ultimate in shnozzes, but if this is "indispensable for your beautiful nose, you wouldn't miss a chance", then we're in for five. – Jason Chen
Dwarves are weeping into their beards, orcs are kicking cats and elves are composing dreary odes of woe in enchanted forests, following the news that the world’s most popular online game will not be getting upgraded this side of Christmas.
The first, and long-awaited, Burning Crusade expansion to World of Warcraft, has been the subject of oceans of drool among adoring Warcraft acolytes, and was due in the coming month. Blizzard, however, has just pushed it back until January. The reason: tweaking.
“We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we’re excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve.”
Six million blood-thirsty gamers are not happy. After all, the prospect of having to spend more time with relatives over the Silly Season can do that. Find out more here. -Martin Lynch
An upgrade of the Kodak V610 V570, the EasyShare V705 keeps the line's trademark Retina Dual Lens Technology, which lets you have an ultra wide focus as well as a regular zoom. So how does this 7-megapixel shooter stand up?
Well, besides being still pretty darn sexy, it's light, has 5x zoom (just like the V570 from 10 on the V610) and is fairly compact. But how easy is it to use? Fairly easy, as long as you don't mind the noticeable jump when you switch from the wide angle to normal angle lens and the slow zoom time. It has a limited number of external controls to keep down complexity, but you can only frame your shots using the 2.5-inch LCD—not a big deal since most people use that anyway.
The image quality is above average, and since the camera is a simple point-and-shoot with no control over aperture and shutter speeds, it's targeted toward the novice—a point Kodak pounded home by making the V705 very easy to use. – Jason Chen
We've already seen what happens when you pack a jet onto the back of a pickup, well now someone's strapped some motors onto a kayak. It's nowhere near as powerful as the pickup, but still manages to make your kayak fast enough to race against rally cars. In Iceland. While dodging icebergs.
Click ahead for a video of our favorite kayak in action (fwd to 4.16 if you wanna head straight to the kayak).
Advanced Technetix, whom nobody has ever heard of, is releasing a "visual" iPod remote. Visual meaning the remote part has a one-line LCD. What makes this device a bit different from others is that full menu functionality and control can be done from the LCD screen on the remote—not just track changing. No batteries are required and it comes with attached headphones. This could be a pretty nice third-party accessory, depending on the price, which is still unknown. – Travis Hudson
Though it was only a prototype, the staff at IGN UK got to bag a PS3 and do with it as they pleased, slowly undressing her and caressing her round discs. Her cuffed cables. Her curvy body. All of it painfully captured on camera for the poor, poor saps who won't be able to buy one of their own ahead of time. Ready for some PS3 pr0n? Click ahead. . .
Winter has yet to arrive, but if you're already craving some of the white powdery stuff (we're talking about snow here folks) this machine should keep you satisfied. It's a personal snow generator that lets you shoot flakes at your will. We grew up with a bubble-blowing Santa machine that squirted bubbles outta Santa's arse, so this is definitely a welcome upgrade.
Chalk one up for Japanese ingenuity—defying the laws of physics and inventing perhaps the finest gadget in history: the Boobkini. It's decent, but indecent at the same time! That's what they said about the bikini (from the Latin bi, meaning "two," and kini, meaning "square inches of Lycra") back in 1946.
Yeah, we post babes, often gratuitously, but hey, this is a gravity-defying invention. How is this done? Well, it's just magic. – Charlie White
Now here's something you can do with granddad's pocket watch: you just slide it into the Pocket Watch Alarm Clock and you have a mixture of old and new.
Designer Nicolas Cheng wanted to add new value to an antique pocket watch by placing it in a special fitted compartment on the left, teaming it up with an LED alarm clock on the right. Sensors inside the clock illuminate the LED numerals when you pick it up, and it also appears to have side lighting for the pocket watch, too.
It's a design concept that offers a blend of the old and new, something with which certain bloggers can identify. Not to mention any names. – Charlie White
We've always been fans of Sharp's LCDs (minus their typically high price tag) and now the folks at CNET are giving us the go-ahead on the company's 46-inch 1080p beauty we showed you before. The TV is credited with delivering the best blacks they've seen (not including CRT HDTVs) and also gets kudos for its punchy picture quality (despite having a blueish tint). There's no dedicated PC input and it'll cost you more than the Westinghouse, but if you've been holding out for that perfect 1080p LCD, this one cuts it close.
In one corner we have Internet Explorer 7. After 18 months of development and a shiny new set of tabs, he's in top shape and looking better than his predecessor ever did. That is, before he entered the ring with Firefox 2.0. Now he's just a cripple with fancy RSS reading.
This battle wasn't pretty. Lifehacker's own Gina Trapani points out that, "Ironically, Fx runs on more versions of Windows than IE 7 does." And it was all downhill from there. While IE 7 was away training in the Himalayas for a year and a half, living off walnuts and squirrel meat, Firefox was poking his wife, being a fill-in-dad for his kids, wearing his favorite tighty whities and learning all his secrets.
Check out our graphs, but equip yourselves with those special solar eclipse glasses first. Then hit the jump for our Frankenfight—where whomever yells the loudest wins. It's sort of the new policy.
OK, fuck this unbiased attitude. Firefox 2 just froze on me while typing this. It can burn in hell.
Wired has a long long piece by John Hockenberry that covers thermal runaway, the thing that makes all those Sony Batteries explode.
It occurs when the touchy elements inside a Li-ion battery heat up to the point where the internal reaction accelerates, creating even more heat. In the case of a laptop flameout, the chemicals break out of their metal casing. Because lithium ignites when it makes contact with the moisture in the air, the battery bursts into flame.
Another fun fact from ther article is that "In the last 150 years, battery performance has improved only about eightfold (or less, depending how it's measured). The speed and capacity of silicon chips, of course, improves that much every six years."
But the best part is the info graphic sidebar that tell us that the future of the laptop battery involves multiple cells custom built for each component. Graphic of the futuristic after the jump...
Stuck in the middle of nowhere without another car in sight? Pull out your FreeCharge Weza and start stomping to convert your physical energy into something your car can use—electricity.
Or, if you thought ahead, you could have already charged up the Weza using your home's AC power, solar energy, or wind energy (all not included). If your car's not dead, you can use it as a source for your campsite as well. Not a bad device to have in case your car breaks down, but we'd probably rather go with AA roadside assistance. – Jason Chen
The Phantom Lapboard keyboard and mouse keeps coming back to haunt us, and now it's received a shot in the arm from Alienware, vowing to ship the input devices with its Media Center PCs. We've seen the Phantom before, first offered as wireless input devices for a hybrid PC console gaming system nearly 3 years ago.
But still, this might be a good keyboard/mouse combo for those smart folks who are bypassing physical media such as Blu-ray, HD DVD and DVDs, putting a PC in their home theaters and watching their movies via video files. With the Phantom's 2.4GHz RF wireless capability, that noisy PC can be 32 feet away, no Bluetooth required.
A revealing video and some mildly caustic commentary, after the jump.
We're ultra picky about the types of components we allow into our living room, but we're granting Alienware's new MCE PC VIP access (and even throwing in free bottle service). The panther-black DHS A series has a cool set top box design and backs it up with an impressive list of its own that includes AMD's Athlon 64 X2 dual-core CPU, HDMI, and enough amperage (1,000-watts to be exact) to power your favorite speakers. This is one of the better-looking MCEs we've seen. Starting price will set you back a cool grand. – Louis Ramirez
It's been three months since AMD and ATI made the nasty, and what do they have to show for it besides a big mess and the broken hearts of nVidia and Intel? Something called the "Fusion", a CPU/GPU hybrid chip.
Thanks to their respective expertise, ATI and AMD can come together and make a CPU that's capable of handling many GPU tasks. Instead of offloading graphical functions to the card, which then has to be piped back to the CPU for additional computation, many things can be done "in house", saving time and making your apps faster. These Fusion CPU/GPUs aren't going to be available until late 2008/early 2009, so whatever you purchase now should be safe from obsolescence until then. – Jason Chen
Hasbro's Tooth Tunes toothbrushes have an MP3 player built in. Ya, they use bone-conduction to rattle the sound through your teeth for 3 minutes, making sure you brush for the American Dental Association's recommended time. The bristles are a bit hard, the head a bit small, and the handle sucks for reverse grip action, but I found it pretty damn cool to brush my teeth while listening to Black Eyed Peas. I wish you could swap songs, but they've got a pretty good variety of music. Gallery below, video above, and 18 song list, Including the Rocky theme, KISS, Queen, and Destiny's Child, after the jump.
Just in wake of those EB Games shenanigans comes this rumor from our lovers over at Kotaku. Their insider says:
...the memo we received stated that employee (PS3) purchases 'should not be allowed.' According to another store manager, 'Employees are completely locked out of buying a console.' ... Apparentlly, this decision came about so that 'more consoles would be available to our customers.' No word, as of yet, as to how long the lockout is supposed to last.
Sucks to work in consumer electronic retail. Any Best Buy employees out there that can shed some light on this rumor? Are BB employees really fucked? Image via Improveverywhere– Travis Hudson
I'm going to have to go out on a limb and say this is one of the sexier CD changer iPod dock audio systems out there. The i9200 from iLuv has space for four vertically mounted CDs, along with two detachable speakers and a convenient iPod dock on top of the main unit. It can play CDs and MP3 CDs along with good 'ole fashion AM/FM radio. The i9200 retails for £150 and is available in black and white. – Travis Hudson
Hold on, let me get in my Delorean and go back in time to figure out what the hell a CD Walkman is. Okay, it's a portable music player that plays CDs. Easy enough. I guess when everyday there is another exploding battery and another PS3 problem, it is probably in Sony's best interest to revert to what they do best, old school portable audio players.
The D-NE241 is a MP3-comptaible CD walkman. And, uh, I guess that is really it. It plays CDs and MP3 CDs, and is silver and shiny. – Travis Hudson
As much as we love the great outdoors, we're too lazy to drag our fat arses out to the woods. So instead we'll plop this portable fireplace next to our TV and watch the Discovery channel as we stuff our bloated face with roasted marshmallows. At £350 quid, it's a cheap way to bring a little country life into your city life. And it looks a helluva lot cheaper than the alternative. – Louis Ramirez
Any Tom, Dick and Jane can write up a list of some of the best digital cameras out there, but it takes a real cynical critic to roundup the worst digital cameras. Kodak, Canon, Polaroid and Pentax all make up the list. Jump to find out which cameras you should avoid come holiday gift time.
Criminals in D.C. should think twice before unloading their gat on someone. The ShotSpotter is a tiny sensor that's been hidden throughout D.C. listening for gunshots and notifying 5-0 the second it hears them. The sensors are pretty small and can detect gunfire up to 2 miles away pinpointing where the shots were fired. They can even distinguish between gunshots and similar sounds like firecrackers. Cool idea, though we'd still prefer to see some bazooka-carrying robo vigilante. – Louis Ramirez
Even if you fill it up with that watery swill known as American beer, this Asahi beer dispensing machine spotted in Narita Airport in Japan can bring the sacred suds from keg to glass with flawless precision. It's much better than the ponderous and goofy Asahi beer robot we were inexplicably raving about last month.
The video says it all—watch it tilt the glass just so as it pours the brewski, and then adds a perfectly-measured head to the top using a separate nozzle. It's the next best thing to the skilled hands of a journeyman barkeep. Makes me thirsty just watching it. – Charlie White
We've seen some weird robotsbefore, but this one hits an 8 on the freak factor scale. Created by Raffaello D'Andrea and Max Dean, the Transformer chair looks like your grandmother's ordinary kitchen chair, but say the magic words and it collapses itself and then transforms itself back into a chair. Don't believe us? Check out the video after the jump. – Louis Ramirez
I've seen a lot of things blinged with Swarovski crystals, from fridges to record playing VW camper vans (really). But c’mon, Swavovski encrusted Band Aids? 
Is the safety of your portable gadgets worth £50? That’s what Widget UK wants to know with the launch of Carsafe (from Autosafe). Essentially, it’s a safe for your car to prevent undesirables from nicking your treasured iPod, phone, PDA, GPS Sat-Nav and any other gadgets you are dumb enough to leave lying around inside.
Dwarves are weeping into their beards, orcs are kicking cats and elves are composing dreary odes of woe in enchanted forests, following the news that the world’s most popular online game will not be getting upgraded this side of Christmas. 
![VisualRemoteDS[2].jpg](http://uk.gizmodo.com/VisualRemoteDS%5B2%5D.jpg)
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
